iPhone calls up No. 1 ranking for mobile metrics

Apple's iPhone jumped to the top spot on the AdMob Network for the month of October, with 4.1 percent of the mobile ads requested from the network, according to the AdMob Mobile Metrics Report released Wednesday.

Requests from advertisers for mobile ads targeted to iPhone users rose to 236 million in October, more than doubling from the 103 million requests recorded in the previous month. Worldwide, AdMob's mobile-ad requests for all device makers grew 13.8 percent in October, to 5.8 billion.

AdMob delivers banner and text ads to mobile devices, and these figures were analyzed and aggregated as part of its monthly Mobile Metrics report. AdMob-served ads are seen by people visiting clients' Web sites with their mobile phone. Advertisers can choose to have their ads appear on a certain type of device, or region of the world, and then AdMob places the ads on partner publishers' mobile sites.

Mobile advertising is on a fast track, with research firms projecting market revenue to reach $19 billion per year by 2011, up from the approximately $3 billion seen for last year.

Fueling the iPhone's October performance was particularly strong traffic outside the United States, which accounted for 37 percent of its ad requests, according to the AdMob report. Western Europe represented 17 percent of the iPhone ad requests, and Asia represented 8 percent.

Other handset players following close behind included the Motorola Razr V3, which received 3.4 percent of the requests; Nokia's N70, with 3.2 percent; and the Motorola Krzr K1c, with 1.8 percent.

But in the U.S. market alone, the iPhone ranked No. 2, with 6.9 percent of the requests, while Motorola's Razr V3 led the market, with 7.7 percent. The U.S. market accounted for 62.8 percent of the iPhone's ad requests in October.